Handbook for Applying the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement

[6], iii, [1], 61, [1] pages. Illustrations. Cover has some wear and soiling. The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. Our mission is to conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level. The Project on Internal Displacement was created to promote a more effective national, regional and international response to this global problem and to support the work of the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in carrying out the responsibilities of his mandate. The need for international standards for the protection of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) became apparent in the 1990s when the number of persons uprooted within their own countries by armed conflict, ethnic strife and human rights abuse began to soar. By 1995, there were an estimated 20 to 25 million in more than 40 countries, almost twice as many as refugees. While IDPs continue to benefit from all of the international human rights instruments legal protections, they do not benefit from the specialized protection of international refugee law because they have not crossed an international border. The vulnerability of IDPs led the UN Commission on Human Rights to ask the Representative on IDPs, Francis Deng, to prepare an appropriate framework for protection and assistance for IDPs. The Representative, with the support of a team of international legal experts, formulated the "Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement", which were presented to the Commission in 1998.…